New Turkish opposition party leader sacks secularist old guard

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Turkey’s new opposition leader has purged key hardline secularists and set a tentative reformist course in a bid to regain ground lost to Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan’s AK Party government, which critics accuse of secretly pursuing an Islamic state.

While courting the more militant secularist elite, the CHP has lost support among urban, middle-class voters by firmly resisting AK’s European Union-inspired reform steps to pare back army influence and liberalise the economy. The CHP has vigorously opposed moves by AK, which denies Islamist ambitions, to reform a constitution born of a 1980 military coup.

“A major difference from Baykal was the lack of any mention of secularism in his speech,” wrote Today’s Zaman, the daily newspaper of the Fethullah Gülen movement. “The emphasis on secularism, a dominant tone in Baykal’s speeches, was replaced with the economy.”